I was surprised to learn that minestrone came about as early as the second century BCE, when Rome conquered Italy and new vegetables flooded the market. It was also known as an Italian peasant’s dish or poor man’s soup. Originally, it contained onion, garlic celery tomatoes and carrots, and pasta seems to have been a later

(Courtesy of Crumbs Bake Shoppe) Crumbs Bake Shoppe is now open! If you have a child or children studying or living in Israel, you may want to read on.

Everybody knows that yeshiva and seminary food generally leaves much to be desired… but why should your child suffer for an entire year or

Rugelach, the crescent-shaped cookie meaning “little twists,” appears to be a Polish creation maybe in the 17th century.

• ½ pound room-temperature cream cheese
• ½ pound (1 cup) margarine

One of the days that about 5,000 to 6,000 kosher oenophiles will miss this February is making a special effort to get to New York, Los Angeles or Miami for the Kosher Food and Wine Experience (KFWE), Royal Wine’s signature annual event that launches new

Like many people working remotely for the last several months, I have been putting some of the time I save from commuting into creative outlets. While some have perfected their sourdough or focaccia, I have been focusing at least some of my energies on the invention (and enjoyment) of new cocktails. Admittedly, some of these new

In Missouri, where I grew up initially in a kosher home, then in a kosher-style home, I never ate ribs.

Barbecued ribs are an early 20th century innovation created by the rise of industrial meatpacking, mechanical refrigeration and commercial barbecue stands. Barbecue originated not as a way of

The wind is blowing hard, the rain comes and goes, no snow yet, but the temperature is definitely cold. It’s not Canada or the U.S. Midwest, but Jerusalem.

Many of us live in buildings with central heating, only no one taught the Israelis to keep it on low all day; instead they turn it off at night and

During quarantine, as the number of things to think about started to run out and boredom began to set in, I turned my thoughts to an age-old question that has baffled wise men and philosophers for generations. I was in the shower, where a surprising amount of my good ideas are cooked up (Cholent Pun #1), when I had my epiphany! I realized

Binah Winery, which made about 1,000 cases of kosher wine in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 2019—its initial bottling year—opened its direct-to-consumer website in April of 2020, in the early days of the pandemic. In retrospect, it turned out to have been a good business

Brisket is the boneless meat on the lower chest of beef or veal. It worked its way into Jewish cuisine because of the location of the meat and the low cost. In the 1900s, it appeared on Jewish deli menus, particularly in Texas where the butchers, who emigrated from Germany and Czechoslovakia, had trouble selling the slow-cooking

A good friend of mine recently called and asked if I was going to be in the shuk (market), to please get her cinnamon sticks. She was co-sponsoring the Shabbat mitzvot luncheon at our synagogue and wanted to make hot apple juice instead of the regular cold soda.

I remembered when I entertained

It was a close competition. But Noah’s Ark won the Teaneck Chili Cook Off organized by Jacob Goldberg of Yalla! on December 15. The judging was done by 50 families who brought home a package with samples of chili, identified only by letter on the containers, and ranked the samples from